Review
THE PUNISHER
Starring Thomas Jane, John Travolta and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos
Directed by Jonathan Hensleigh
Opens Friday, April 16
Check listings
North America has a habit of confusing vengeance with justice. For proof, look no further than Afghanistan, The Rock’s Walking Tall or Jonathan Hensleigh’s new The Punisher, a mercilessly violent action film that would be offensive if it wasn’t such a curiously straight reflection of a culture in which high school kids mow each other down with machine guns.
Based on the Marvel Comics character, the film tells the story of Frank Castle (Thomas Jane), a special-ops hard-ass who wants to retire to a peaceful life with his wife and son. In a stroke of poor luck, his final bust goes bad, and the son of champagne gangster Howard Saint (John Travolta) accidentally gets killed. Obviously, Saint is upset – enough so that he’s happy to oblige when his icy wife (Laura Harring) asks him to wipe out Castle’s whole family in return.
Tit leads to tat, and soon Frank has morphed into the bourbon-swilling, grenade-toting Punisher, determined to avenge his family’s death. A massive arsenal appears out of nowhere, he dons his trademark skull shirt, and in the pump of a shotgun he’s ready to take on Saint’s clan of goons, including a goateed gay sadist (Will Patton) and a carnival-ready Russian strongman played by WWE wrestler Kevin Nash.
The first half of the film is violent, but it pads its bullets with dialogue that’s so cardboard it comes off as stylish. Myriad stereotypes and clichés are played for something like a post-postmodern noir feel, skipping over irony to mine a flat artificiality that would make Baudrillard proud. Adding to the fun is a bit of inspired genre-hopping marked by the entrance of Frank’s neighbours, a trio of misfits that form a kind of ragtag support group for him.
Then, things go off the rails, The Punisher devolves into a cruel festival of guns, stabbings and hard violence. It’s definitely garish and frankly hard to watch – but then, vengeance isn’t pretty. Marvel’s The Punisher always toed the line between hero and villain, and Jane’s sculpted vigilante does the same, embodying the kind of mean, eye-for-an-eye approach that seems so elemental to both North American law and Hollywood blockbuster formula.
It would be going too far to call The Punisher deep – at heart, it’s a dark, simple and somewhat sadistic action film. But if you can sit through the image of a man getting a knife jammed up through his chin, it’s a film that has something to say about our culture of violence, and of vengeance. The vague ending may set up a sequel all too nicely, but it also refuses to wrap things up in a happy little cartoon-contoured box. Instead, it raises questions about our heroes both real and fictional, and asks what their heroic violence might look like stripped of its candy-coloured leotards, majestic flags and real-life morals – which all too often come off like something out of a comic book. |
Copyright ©2004 FFWD. All rights reserved.